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But you've included Valve there, when Valve are pretty big these days particularly with Steam.

But they are not publicly traded or constituting a part of a larger operation, which are the usual means by which a game developer blows way past the (fuzzy) number of 150 whereupon its dynamics (internal and external) cease to function on human principles such as empathy, trust, reciprocity, etc.

Ubisoft might be piss-poor when it comes to particular issues but plenty of other big devs manage to push patches to fix issues.

Sure. I said an individual is capable on acting upon the basis of something other than the bottom line, not that all individuals will. Some individuals are moral vs. no large organisations are moral.

Authoritative citation needed.

It's one of the many implications of Dunbar's number. Ironically it's a concept many corporations are now using in internal restructuring so that the whole might be more effective in not give a shit about anyone else.

here's a book that talks about both Dunbar's number and corporations, alas key sections have been excised from the Google Books preview. =/

But they are not publicly traded or beholden to a larger publisher. And in the absence of those things, I wouldn't be at all surprised if even Valve falls short of 150 employees. It's a fuzzy figure in any case.

According to the Employee handbook, they employ just under 300 people currently.

Question is referred to Heister, not to you. No offense, but I really want Heister to answer this question, because I have asked him multiple times and he does not appear to know the answer or something, as he has not replied.

So what's your point? Some dlc is worth promoting/buying?

Yes! I've bought the devs game on release. Now they've released their dlc. Woohoo! I can spend more money on somethng I didn't even know I wanted. I am spoilt!

Other side of brain: So I've bought their game new and now I find that they have more content associated with the game. What shall I do?

Publisher: Buy it. Buy it now! And by the time you've played it we'll, I mean they'll have more for you to buy.

But they are not publicly traded or constituting a part of a larger operation, which are the usual means by which a game developer blows way past the (fuzzy) number of 150 whereupon its dynamics (internal and external) cease to function on human principles such as empathy, trust, reciprocity, etc.

Unaco has said they employ about 300 people. Whether they're publically traded or not is largely irrelevant especially if you're going to pull up the 150 number argument here. Valve are big business in the gaming sector, not only as a developer but also as a publisher. Hell, they pioneered online distribution for the most part. Anybody who claims they're small is kidding themselves. They're also ridiculously massive in popularity. Even plenty of casual gamers know Valve by virtue of Steam. They have legions of fanboys to defend every action or ambiguous EULA clause. "No Steam, no sale!" And you think Valve is small?

As for the ideas of trust etc, I know I say this every couple of threads, but Valve have broken the trust of the community in the past. Namely with the HL2 release date, where they knew it wasn't going to make September 2003, yet blatantly lied to everyone that it would. And that was back in 2003. They've gotten bigger since then. Shouldn't they be getting more untrustworthy?

Originally Posted by Rii

But not because they give a damn, which was the point.

You'll need something to back that up... or at least an alternative motivation.

Originally Posted by Rii

Sure. I said an individual is capable on acting upon the basis of something other than the bottom line, not that all individuals will. Some individuals are moral vs. no large organisations are moral.

No large organisations are moral? I think you're getting too caught up in corporate hate-week here. "Organisation" is a very broad category here which doesn't necessary require the corporate greed you seem intent on bringing up. I can think of a number of services which pass 150 people and yet don't fit the corporate-fascist nightmare people seem to think the word is stuck in. Especially here in Australia.

Originally Posted by Rii

It's one of the many implications of Dunbar's number. Ironically it's a concept many corporations are now using in internal restructuring so that the whole might be more effective in not give a shit about anyone else.

I'll accept that as a theory even though I'd normally criticise a Wikipedia quote. However I don't think it applies quite as commonly or uniformly as you seem to be suggesting here.

Originally Posted by Heister

So what's your point? Some games aren't?

I'm guessing we'd like a way to find other people's opinions on whether said game is worth buying or not.

Yeah, imagine - if it was a guy's job to play games so he could tell us whether they're worth purchasing or not.

My god, it's brilliant! We should totally get in on the ground floor of that.

Come now my good sir, these outrageous dreams of flying machines and so called 'reviewers' of interactive entertainments are ill-becoming of a man of your standing. Stop wasting your time on such follies and return to your alchemy studies. Such dreams will never become reality. It's absurd to even consider it!

Dear me, I must go have a lie-down. All this talk of future-visions incomprehensible have caused my angina to act up again.

Since we're here, I think I'll have a rant about a couple of DLC things that I don't like very much. The following mainly applies to story-based games, rather than things like 4X games that you can replay many times.

My assumption is that DLC should be primarily aimed at people who are big fans of the game. That makes it OK for the DLC to be overpriced, which it almost always is, because we're going to be selling it to people who got more enjoyment from their initial £££, so are "ahead" anyway, and the increased DLC price should be moving the price closer to fair. I still think most DLC is way too expensive, but that's beside the point: in principle for DLC aimed at big fans it is fine for the cost-per-entertainment-unit to be higher than the base game.

With this assumption, there are two DLC things I don't like very much. The first is DLC that comes into action early in the playthrough. Something like a companion DLC for a Bioware game. If you're going to get the most out of this DLC, it has to be in your first playthrough and it has to be early. In other words, it requires you to buy the DLC before you know whether you're a big fan. Since DLC is priced unfairly for non-big-fans, this isn't a good situation. Imagine the Good Old Days. You'd not buy a full-price expansion at the same time as a full-price base game. That'd be madness. But now imagine that playing the expansion after playing the base game was not the right way to do it either. Yuck.

Second thing is content that bridges to the next game in the series. If you're going to do this you have to make the price reasonable for non-big-fans, or do a really good job of filling in the gaps for people who didn't play the DLC.

I think the Euro 2012 'expansion' is an example of pretty much everything that's bad about DLC. More expensive than a whole lot of very recent games, halfassed licensing (one of the host nations is generic) and no gameplay improvements. If it was half the price and had fully licensed teams it would have been a must buy. As it stands they'll still sell a crapton of it, but they've lost a whole lot of goodwill of FIFA players.

My assumption is that DLC should be primarily aimed at people who are big fans of the game. That makes it OK for the DLC to be overpriced, which it almost always is, because we're going to be selling it to people who got more enjoyment from their initial £££, so are "ahead" anyway, and the increased DLC price should be moving the price closer to fair. I still think most DLC is way too expensive, but that's beside the point: in principle for DLC aimed at big fans it is fine for the cost-per-entertainment-unit to be higher than the base game.

With this assumption, there are two DLC things I don't like very much. The first is DLC that comes into action early in the playthrough. Something like a companion DLC for a Bioware game. If you're going to get the most out of this DLC, it has to be in your first playthrough and it has to be early. In other words, it requires you to buy the DLC before you know whether you're a big fan. Since DLC is priced unfairly for non-big-fans, this isn't a good situation. Imagine the Good Old Days. You'd not buy a full-price expansion at the same time as a full-price base game. That'd be madness. But now imagine that playing the expansion after playing the base game was not the right way to do it either. Yuck.

So lemme get these points straight:

- You want DLC to be priced to entice non-fans, when you yourself admit that DLC is directed towards fans.
- You think that people are "buying blind" for Bioware companion DLC, when the only companion that was ever sold for extra at launch in a Bioware game was the Prothean, who came at the end of a trilogy with a well-established fanbase.
- You harken back to the Good Old Days, except the difference with the Good Old Days and the Bad New Days isn't that developers were more moral beings back then, but that technology didn't allow them to sell things piecemeal like they do now.

You also have a metric for cost-for-entertainment that you fail to define anywhere. I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's likely to be "hours played in one playthrough." Hokay. ME2 was 25 hours, start-to-finish, $50. LotSB was 4 hours, start-to-finish, $10. $2/hr vs $2.50/hr. Not terribly much of a difference.

But wait! "Hours of entertainment" as a cost ratio is kinda bullshit. People are quite willing to pay $50 for a 9 hour manshoot campaign with plenty of sturm und drang, and hesitate to pay $50 for a 100 hour hiking simulator with endless modability. What gives? Could it be that the quality of what you do should in some way color your impressions, rather than simply the time allotted?

Everything seems to point to judging DLC on its own right, as any other game or piece of content. And why not? Nothing says that there should be a categorical denial of DLC reviews - if it's overpriced, the reviews would reflect that. But I highly suspect that the reason it gets reviews is because it's not always overpriced. Yeah, we have Horse Armor on one end, but we also have Obvious Cash-ins on the base game front, too. After all, isn't there another thread on this forum about the annualization of Call of Duty releases?

Last edited by Nalano; 29-04-2012 at 11:06 AM.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

So basically, if an indie dev releases a shitty character skin DLC we should review that, but not if EA does it for Mass Effect or something?

But dude, EA are EVIL. They're the worst of the worst. Giving them money is like financing the devil. They're the empire and the Indies are the rebellion and Origin is the death star..and valve are totally like the force, Gabe Newell is totally Yoda and Steam is the bestest thing ever and deserves a monopoly.

Originally Posted by dsch

Personally, I have faith in the editorial judgement of the hive mind.

Overall they do a pretty good job of separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to newsworthiness I find.

Originally Posted by Hypernetic

That's how I roll. Also, I never called HIM retarded, I called his idea retarded.

I like the cut of your jib sir.

Originally Posted by Nalano

Yeah, imagine - if it was a guy's job to play games so he could tell us whether they're worth purchasing or not.

My god, it's brilliant! We should totally get in on the ground floor of that.

Yes! I've bought the devs game on release. Now they've released their dlc. Woohoo! I can spend more money on somethng I didn't even know I wanted. I am spoilt!

Other side of brain: So I've bought their game new and now I find that they have more content associated with the game. What shall I do?

Publisher: Buy it. Buy it now! And by the time you've played it we'll, I mean they'll have more for you to buy.

Mug: Ok then, yes please.

You still haven't specified what exactly is wrong with that though. Spending money on content that expands the game ? These practives have been around since hard drives were around. You talk as if it is a bad thing, but you have not adequately explained why it is a bad thing.

- You want DLC to be priced to entice non-fans, when you yourself admit that DLC is directed towards fans.

Only when it's bridging DLC from one game to the next. In that case it's should be something that ought to be played by everyone who wants to play the next game, and should be priced appropriately relative to the value of the game and the comparative length/quality of the DLC. Although to be honest as long as you explain the bridge well enough for people who didn't buy the DLC I'm also happy with pricing this sort of DLC higher too.

For DLC like extra characters and extra quests, this can be at a premium price, that's fine. Often I think the price they choose is too high even when I like the game, but that's just a matter of practice rather than principle.

- You think that people are "buying blind" for Bioware companion DLC, when the only companion that was ever sold for extra at launch in a Bioware game was the Prothean, who came at the end of a trilogy with a well-established fanbase.

I think Sebastian from DA2 was also a paid character or o pre-order bonus or something. I certainly don't have him. There are enough examples of series where one likes one game and dislikes the next that it's unwise to make many assumptions about whether you'll like a game or not. If they want to make day 1 DLC I'd rather they did it through extra late-game missions and the like. My principle is: I don't mind if the DLC is available on day 1, but I don't want to have to buy it on day 1. I doubt I'll ever buy day 1 DLC on day 1 unless I really have an excellent idea of what I'm going to be getting, and that is very very rare.

You also have a metric for cost-for-entertainment that you fail to define anywhere.

Well of course I'm not going to define it, that would be silly. It's not a formula I or anyone else has access to, it's just an opinion that I can approximately work out.

That's fine. It's relatively more expensive to me in Europeland, as online-only things tend to be. I think it is still OK value though even here, although I haven't bought it. I never really liked Liara that much though. I would pay €10 for a good 4 hour Tali DLC though. I bought the Leliana DLC for DA:O, that was slightly expensive but acceptable.

Everything seems to point to judging DLC on its own right, as any other game or piece of content. And why not? Nothing says that there should be a categorical denial of DLC reviews

I just meant my post as an aside. I don't think the OP's idea is particularly good, even though I am suspicious of DLC I am not hostile to it. I bought some DLC yesterday, actually.

I think Sebastian from DA2 was also a paid character or o pre-order bonus or something. I certainly don't have him. There are enough examples of series where one likes one game and dislikes the next that it's unwise to make many assumptions about whether you'll like a game or not. If they want to make day 1 DLC I'd rather they did it through extra late-game missions and the like. My principle is: I don't mind if the DLC is available on day 1, but I don't want to have to buy it on day 1. I doubt I'll ever buy day 1 DLC on day 1 unless I really have an excellent idea of what I'm going to be getting, and that is very very rare.

Wait, there'sone thing I don't get: Why would DLC that comes in action early in the game be absolutely required for the first playtrough? I don't see how that works exactly.

Wait, there'sone thing I don't get: Why would DLC that comes in action early in the game be absolutely required for the first playtrough? I don't see how that works exactly.

I never said it was absolutely required. The first playthrough of a story-based linear-ish game is usually the most fun, hence if I'm going to pay for extras, I'd like them to be integrated into the first playthrough. I'm going to get more out of, say, an extra companion, if I have them with me in my first playthrough.

Last edited by NathanH; 29-04-2012 at 01:57 PM.
Reason: less aggressive

Unheard of? No. But it's really not common. I certainly don't have the time to play games through more than once, unless the entire experience is significantly different the second time around (or I can skip to the different bits).

I never said it was absolutely required. The first playthrough of a story-based linear-ish game is usually the most fun, hence if I'm going to pay for extras, I'd like them to be integrated into the first playthrough. I'm going to get more out of, say, an extra companion, if I have them with me in my first playthrough.

Hmm: I don't - Those companions ocasionally get the feel of being "Shoehorned in" (ME2's zaeed coems to mind, as well as Fallout 3-NV's DLC). I play my first playtrough DLC free when possible, beause everything that is in there feels as if it was intended to be there (I used a mod for NV instead). DLC is usually the product of a different design document, and unless you are really good atwhat you do, it usually is just very jarring for me.